All Arranged || Goodbye self para
Kirkley was all ready to go to the summer camp BATS was having over the break. It seemed fun and full of valuable training. Plus he missed his friends and was ready to get back to them. Heather stayed with him for a little while but he missed her. He was packing light for the summer, prepared to live at BATS the same way he lived out here. He was smiling that night before he had to start traveling back to BATS.
But everything changed in the morning.
The head of this herd approached with caution and respect and asked to speak with Chiron. Chiron approached with his eldest sons at his elbows. Until the head asked if they could speak alone. Which was even more strange than the number of females he had. Two unfamiliar heads of herds that are meeting for the first time do not speak alone. Unless it is of great importance. Reluctantly, Chiron agreed and the two, alone, stood to the side and talked privately while their herds watched each other carefully. When they returned, the did not have good news for Kirk.
The herd turned out to be from several miles north of where the Ixions were. War had spread and claimed their community. The battles were long and hard. But at last the war was won, but at a price. They had lost many young males. Too many. Their herds and entire community was being threatened to dwindle and die out entirely in a few generations because of the now scarcity of males. The herd had come to beg fathers for their sons to bring life back into their community, regardless of birth. This community was desperate for unmarried, unbetrothed males.
Males like Kirkley.
In a bitter duty as only a centaur would know, Chiron agreed to let the herd arrange marriages with his younger sons, Demitri, Calisto, and Kirkley in the usual fashion of centaur courtship. Chiron, with Nessa’s help and input, had found what they thought would be suitable matches for their children in the herd before them. Once Chiron knew of the news, his remaining children raced off to find the other herds and gather more males. All save his youngest.
"Kirkley, you can’t go!" Larisa wailed, grabbing Kirkley roughly by his arms, tears in her eyes. "You have to stay here with me!"
"Larisa," Kirk said, his own tears close to breaking over his voice. "I…"
Nessa, her face grave, removed her youngest child from her youngest son. Kirkley kept his arms lifted to her, as if to embrace her, but he couldn’t move and Nessa was moving his baby sister, his dear Isa, farther away from him. But when she looked up into the face of her three sons, two tears broke through her control and she had to look away, holding the wailing youngest Ixion.
Kirk had been too stunned for words. Now, it was all too real. He was leaving his herd at seventeen and his sister was crying, his mother was crying, his father looked so grave, like when his father had died. And when Chiron looked at them, Kirk knew he was thinking as if he was loosing his sons. He took Demitri and then Calisto aside, each separately to speak with them. And Kirk was left alone in his own turmoil of thoughts. All he could see was BATS and the faces that went with it, shining out at him. The brightest was the wide smile of a blonde headed boy who was just as big as Kirk. And the sweet, loving smile of a girl with hair just as fair…
Chiron grasped his shoulder and Kirk blinked at him uncomprehending several times. And when Kirk could see his father’s face, he knew his father understood him. “I can’t even say goodbye…” Kirk said brokenly, Heather’s perfect face still clear in his mind.
Only the gods themselves could have given Kirk a deeper empathetic face. Chiron gazed at his youngest son for an instant before he spoke. “No. The time you had with her will have to be enough.”
Tears rolled down Kirk’s face. “I don’t want that to be enough. I want more. I love her.”
"I know," there was such deep, aching sadness in his voice for him. "I know Kirk. But you have a duty to preform."
Kirk couldn’t speak, only weep. Chiron gave him one last look before bowing his head and moving away. Still crying, Kirk watched through his blurred vision as his father joined his mother and younger sister, still wailing and crying out for him. And Kirk seemed to blink and then they were gone. His two other brothers came over and wrapped their arms around his shoulders. After a small pause, Kirk wrapped his arms around them too. And they were alone. Saying goodbye to everything they had known.
